Monday, August 25, 2008
Help Needed!!
Hi all. As I begin my graduate school experience today, it turns out that all my classes are in the afternoon. I in my attempt to be a good wife/mother I am searching for crock pot recipies. (That way, when Norm comes home early to take care of the kids, he won't have to worry about fixing dinner) If you have a great recipie or know of a great crock pot recipie book, please let me know. Thanks to all!
Friday, August 8, 2008
More Fun with Frogs
Monsoon season in Tucson brings with it ponds of water where frogs & toads develop. Every year my children love to catch the tiny frogs that appear all over the place after a good monsoon rain.
Wednesday afternoon they went out frog hunting with their neighborhood friends. They came back with a bucket full of these tiny frogs. Of course, they wanted to keep them all as pets. Rachel had even snuck a tupperware bowl out to put her three special frogs in. Andrew's friend, Blake, thought they could go around and sell them to people, but couldn't tell me why people would want them.
I was a nice enough mom to let them keep them over night in our garage (though I was sure that many would be dead in the morning) as long as they promised to let them go the next afternoon. I assisted in getting them to put a rock or two in the buckets so the frogs would a place to escape out of the water to. We covered Rachel's bowl with some plastic wrap and poked holes into it (her bowl had pretty low sides and her frogs kept trying to climb out). At bed-time, the frogs had to be said good-night to. In the morning, suprisingly only 2 frogs were dead, but all three of Rachel's frogs had escaped (she had left the plastic loose when saying good-night). After school the they all went together to free their friends after one last ditch plea to let them keep them longer. I'm not that nice ;)
Rachel's 3: Sparkle, Princess, & Star
A few of the many Andrew & Cory caught
Wednesday afternoon they went out frog hunting with their neighborhood friends. They came back with a bucket full of these tiny frogs. Of course, they wanted to keep them all as pets. Rachel had even snuck a tupperware bowl out to put her three special frogs in. Andrew's friend, Blake, thought they could go around and sell them to people, but couldn't tell me why people would want them.
I was a nice enough mom to let them keep them over night in our garage (though I was sure that many would be dead in the morning) as long as they promised to let them go the next afternoon. I assisted in getting them to put a rock or two in the buckets so the frogs would a place to escape out of the water to. We covered Rachel's bowl with some plastic wrap and poked holes into it (her bowl had pretty low sides and her frogs kept trying to climb out). At bed-time, the frogs had to be said good-night to. In the morning, suprisingly only 2 frogs were dead, but all three of Rachel's frogs had escaped (she had left the plastic loose when saying good-night). After school the they all went together to free their friends after one last ditch plea to let them keep them longer. I'm not that nice ;)
Rachel's 3: Sparkle, Princess, & Star
A few of the many Andrew & Cory caught
Tuesday, August 5, 2008
New Discovery
So my little bro & sis turned me on to Pandora.com. I've been having a blast with it this morning. How come no one told me about it before?! I love how I can put in one band that I like and they will come up with other music that is similar and that I love too! I've found my new cleaning/web surfing/being lazy music station. I'm addicted!! If you haven't heard of it, check it out.
Sunday, August 3, 2008
New Church Callings
I knew it was coming, but was still slightly surprised when Norm & I were asked to meet with the 1st councelor in the bishopbric today before church. We have been serving as the wolf den leaders together for the past few months. I recently found that my class schedule was not going to be condusive to having den meetings in the early afternoon. I did what I have only done once before and let the primary know that I would need to be released from the calling. Norm & I hoped that our new callings would allow us to spend time together as being wolf leaders did, but we didn't hold out much hope (knowing that the primary was short on teachers, & that Norm had just been released from 4 years of teaching primary we didn't think they'd put him back in with me).
So, Norm is now the new assistant cub master (a calling he's had before) and I am teaching the Valient 9 class. I actually only have half of the 9 year olds because there are 16 of them. Andrew will be one of my students & I know all the other boys from working with them in cub scouts. I was surprized to find that of the 8 boys that are that age, 6 are in my class (I wonder what the thought process was on that one?). They're an active group of boys. I was asking Andrew about the kids in his class on the way home (he didn't know I was their new teacher) and he filled me in on who the always good, sometimes good/sometimes bad, and troublemakers were (I pretty much knew it all already and was impressed when he included himself in the good/bad group, Kellie- Kennedy made the always good list). He also told me that they've scared off all their teachers, so the boys think they're pretty "bad"
Anyway, it will be a needed challenge for me to keep their interest & keep the misbehaving at a minimum (I already know who to keep separate). It's been quite a few years since I've had a calling as a teacher in primary (approx 10-11 yrs ago I held the calling for a few months before we moved to Seattle & since then it's been mainly primary/relief society pianist or cub scouts) so any of you who have more recent experience, I'll gladly take advice.
So, Norm is now the new assistant cub master (a calling he's had before) and I am teaching the Valient 9 class. I actually only have half of the 9 year olds because there are 16 of them. Andrew will be one of my students & I know all the other boys from working with them in cub scouts. I was surprized to find that of the 8 boys that are that age, 6 are in my class (I wonder what the thought process was on that one?). They're an active group of boys. I was asking Andrew about the kids in his class on the way home (he didn't know I was their new teacher) and he filled me in on who the always good, sometimes good/sometimes bad, and troublemakers were (I pretty much knew it all already and was impressed when he included himself in the good/bad group, Kellie- Kennedy made the always good list). He also told me that they've scared off all their teachers, so the boys think they're pretty "bad"
Anyway, it will be a needed challenge for me to keep their interest & keep the misbehaving at a minimum (I already know who to keep separate). It's been quite a few years since I've had a calling as a teacher in primary (approx 10-11 yrs ago I held the calling for a few months before we moved to Seattle & since then it's been mainly primary/relief society pianist or cub scouts) so any of you who have more recent experience, I'll gladly take advice.
Sunday, July 27, 2008
book list
So a friend of mine (hi nancee) posted this list of 100 "classic" books that supposedly the average person has only read 6 of. I got to 28. How many have you read? (I'm especially interested in how many you have read, Janette, and you too Kassie, my english majoring sisters). I do think that Jane Austen shows up too many times. Surprisingly, I haven't read any of her books.
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (loved it!)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (great easy read)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (one of my favorite h.s. required reading, love the movie too)
6. The Bible (the majority of it)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (h.s. requirement, don’t remember much other than big brother)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott (read when 12-13 and loved it)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (h.s. requirement, don’t remember much)
14. Complete work of Shakespere (have read many, but not his complete works)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (great book)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (started reading on my own once, couldn’t get by the swearing)
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (read in middle school I think, too much description for my liking)
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (h.s. requirement, didn’t hate it, don't remember much though)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (very funny)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (h.s. requirement, didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it either, had a great teacher that made it interesting)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (read it once)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (just read it recently, found it tough to get through)
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (h.s. requirement, remember feeling sorry for the girl)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (have read them all multiple times and love the series)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (have read it multiple times, love it, need to read it to the kids)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell (read in 8th grade! Way too early to get much out of it, am thinking about reading it again sometime)
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (liked it, but a bit creepy at times)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I’ve seen all the movies does that count?)
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert (started to once, but too long & didn’t catch my interest right away)
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fiedling
68. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdi
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (we read Billy Bud instead, don't recommend it, even my teacher didn't like it)
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (one of my childhood favorites)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce (my h.s. teacher had us read another Joyce book intead, can't remember the name though)
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (another childhood favorite)
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (h.s. requirement, very violent as I remember)
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams (another we read in 8th grade, too much went over my head, just remember the rabbits)
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (another great kid book, my kids loved it)
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
(The last two were missing, so my friend made some up)
99. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
100. Twilight series - Stephanie Myers (just finished reading them all, not too bad, the main character is a bit too whiney/needy for my liking though)
1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2. The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien (loved it!)
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (great easy read)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee (one of my favorite h.s. required reading, love the movie too)
6. The Bible (the majority of it)
7. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (h.s. requirement, don’t remember much other than big brother)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11. Little Women - Louisa May Alcott (read when 12-13 and loved it)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller (h.s. requirement, don’t remember much)
14. Complete work of Shakespere (have read many, but not his complete works)
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien (great book)
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger (started reading on my own once, couldn’t get by the swearing)
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell (read in middle school I think, too much description for my liking)
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald (h.s. requirement, didn’t hate it, don't remember much though)
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (very funny)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck (h.s. requirement, didn’t love it, but didn’t hate it either, had a great teacher that made it interesting)
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (read it once)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame (just read it recently, found it tough to get through)
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy (h.s. requirement, remember feeling sorry for the girl)
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis (have read them all multiple times and love the series)
34. Emma - Jane Austen
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen
36. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
37. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
38. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
39. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne (have read it multiple times, love it, need to read it to the kids)
40. Animal Farm - George Orwell (read in 8th grade! Way too early to get much out of it, am thinking about reading it again sometime)
41. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (liked it, but a bit creepy at times)
42. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
43. A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
44. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
45. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery (I’ve seen all the movies does that count?)
46. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
47. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
48. Lord of the Flies - William Golding
49. Atonement - Ian McEwan
50. Life of Pi - Yann Martel
51. Dune - Frank Herbert (started to once, but too long & didn’t catch my interest right away)
52. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
53. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
54. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
55. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
56. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
57. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
58. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
59. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
60. Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
61. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
62. The Secret History - Donna Tartt
63. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
64. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
65. On The Road - Jack Kerouac
66. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
67. Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fiedling
68. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdi
69. Moby Dick - Herman Melville (we read Billy Bud instead, don't recommend it, even my teacher didn't like it)
70. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
71. Dracula - Bram Stoker
72. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett (one of my childhood favorites)
73. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
74. Ulysses - James Joyce (my h.s. teacher had us read another Joyce book intead, can't remember the name though)
75. The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
76. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
77. Germinal - Emile Zola
78. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
79. Possession - AS Byatt
80. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
81. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
82. The Color Purple - Alice Walker
83. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
84. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
85. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
86. Charlotte’s Web - EB White (another childhood favorite)
87. The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
88. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
89. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
90. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (h.s. requirement, very violent as I remember)
91. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
92. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
93. Watership Down - Richard Adams (another we read in 8th grade, too much went over my head, just remember the rabbits)
94. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
95. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
96. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
97. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (another great kid book, my kids loved it)
98. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo
(The last two were missing, so my friend made some up)
99. Age of Innocence - Edith Wharton
100. Twilight series - Stephanie Myers (just finished reading them all, not too bad, the main character is a bit too whiney/needy for my liking though)
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Andrew & Toady They Went Acourtn'
Norm found this toad (too big to be a frog I think) as he left this morning. He sent me to get the kids. They were all pretty excited, but Andrew was the most interested. I really wanted to get him out of the yard since I wasn't sure if it was one of the poisonous (to dogs) toads that roam these parts. Andrew was game to try and catch it while I supervised. After chasing it for a while, Andrew was able to catch it. He really wanted to keep it, but I convinced him that it would be better to take him across the street to a nice pond where he could live a happy life. So that's just what we did. Saturday, July 19, 2008
Kindergarden Comparison
So I was looking through old photos yesterday and came across Cory's kindergarden graduation pictures. I thought that he looked really young in comparison to how Rachel looks now & how Andrew looked 2 years ago. I guess chronologically he was the youngest (his b-day of Aug 30, makes him the youngest in his class), but I still think he looks much younger than the other two, with Rachel looking the oldest to me even though chronologically Andrew was the oldest when he graduated. Let me know what you think.
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